The schoolboy in the War

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The schoolboy in
the war

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1919

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By
NELLIE SPBNCE

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Copyright, Caiads, 1919
THE MDSSON BOOK CO., LIMITED
Publishers - Toronto

The Schoolboy in the War

By NELLIE SPENCE

DON'T be too hard on that boy! He's
Wallace's brother, you know. You
ought to show a little mercy for Wai-
lie's sake."

The scene was a class-room in a well-known
Canadian school ; the time about four in the
afternoon some seven years ago. I was in
charge of a motley assembly of delinquents who
had been gathered in from all the forms to do
a half-hour's penance for various sins of the
day. A small boy occupying a back seat had
been into some mischief, and I had just brought
him up to the front and was in the act of de-
livering a little homily for his benefit when one
of my colleagues entered the room and whis-
pered the above admonition. The small boy
overheard the whisper and smiled a roguish and
knowing smile, as much as to say, "I guess I'm
all right now!"

That little mischief-loving lad of seven years
ago was destined to lay down his life in the
last and most epic phase of the great World
War.

In his History of the Battle of the Somme,
John Buchan pays a high tribute to the School-

Page 2 The Schoolboy in the War

boy in the War. "When our great armies were
improvised," he says, "the current fear was
that a sufficient number of trained officers
could not be provided to lead them. But the
fear was groundless. The typical public-school
boy proved a born leader of men. His good-
humour and camaraderie, his high sense of duty,
his personal gallantry were the qualities most
needed in the long months of trench warfare.
When the advance came he was equal to the oc-
casion. Most of the righting was in small units,
and the daring and intrepidity of men who a
little while before had been schoolboys was a
notable asset in this struggle of sheer human
quality. The younger officers sacrificed them-
selves freely, and it was the names of platoon
commanders that filled most of the casualty
lists."

Though speaking in general terms, Buchan
has evidently in mind the English "public"-
school boy, the boy of Eton and Rugby and
Harrow. Following afar off his great example,
I wish, while writing under a general title, to
pay a tribute to the Canadian Schoolboy in the
War. Some recognition of his work and spirit
is long overdue; and, failing a worthier voice
and pen, I am constrained to essay the high,
heroic theme. Arma puerumque cano — and oh,
how much more inspiring a figure is the Boy
than the Man to-day! the Boy who went forth,
even as did the lad David in the days of old,

The Schoolboy in the War Page 3

and with the self-same purpose — to slay Goliath !

"O men with many scars and stains,

Stand back, abase your souls and pray!
For now to Nineteen are the gains,
And golden Twenty wins the day."

As it is easier to deal with a subject in the
concrete than in the abstract, I am going to de-
scribe the Canadian Schoolboy soldier in the
person of that one whom I have known best, per-
haps, of all the boys — bela^ea — £O*H= — s
hundred in number — who passed (many of them
directly, some after an interval at college or
business) from the study of history in my class-
room to the making of history overseas. That
one is the little lad to whom I showed mercy
for his brother's sake some seven years ago. If
I can succeed in drawing a faithful picture of
him, I shall have succeeded approximately in
describing the Canadian Schoolboy in general.
And perhaps the picture may stand for the
Schoolboy in a still more general sense, since
(though I may be pardoned for thinking that
there is no Schoolboy in the world quite like
the Canadian Schoolboy) it is likely that the
Schoolboy is much the same the world over;
or, at any rate, in free countries, where he is
allowed to grow up as a plant in God's own sun-
shine ; where discipline at home or school rests
more on moral than on physical force ; where
the stress is laid on the spirit rather than on
the letter of the law; where a real comradeship

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Page 4 The Schoolboy in the War

is possible between child and parent, pupil and
teacher.

Is it necessary to express the hope that, in
these days when we are all being drawn together
by a feeling of kinship and by a sympathy which
is born of sorrow, the personal note (none other
is possible in such a sketch as this), and the
mention of things intimate and sacred may be
pardoned?

My acquaintance with the boy Alan, begun
thus dramatically, did not develop much until
two years later, when he entered one of my
classes. So my knowledge of him extends back
over the past five years — one lustrum, to use the
old Roman time-unit, of a life that numbered
only four.

From the beginning I found him a very in-
teresting pupil, especially because a certain
complexity in his character baffled me for a long
time. It was only when I made the discovery
that he was not, as I had thought, all-Scotch, but
Irish on his mother's side, that I began to un-
derstand him. He had lost that mother shortly
before my acquaintance with him began, and I
know her only through a beautiful picture and
some very lovable traits transmitted to her chil-
dren. But the Scottish side of Alan seemed to
predominate, and it was Lowland Scotch at that
(and surely the Lowland Scot is the least un-
derstandable as he is the least expansive of
human beings). "You may be half -Irish, but you

The Schoolboy in the War Page 5

are still three-quarters Scotch," I said to him
more than once; and I tried hard to coax that
Irish part out to a more equable proportion. It
was that part, with its mysticism and its poetry,
that appealed to me.

My second year's acquaintance with Alan
was his last at the school, the year igi4-'i5.
That first year of the war was the most wonder-
ful in the history of our school, as, I daresay,
of all Canadian schools. There never was, there
never could be again, a year like it. We were
all in a state of patriotic exaltation, and the re-
lationship of teachers and pupils became a much
closer and finer thing than could have been pos-
sible under any other circumstances. Of all the
boys in attendance that year three became es-
pecially endeared because of their active assist-
ance and interest in our patriotic work. There
was George, English of the English, to whom
loyalty was as the very air he breathed. There
was Raymond, the Yankee lad (but of old Aca-
dian stock), who was almost the best Britisher
of us all. And there was Alan, who had a
double heritage of the fighting spirit, and, more-
over, like the other two, a beautiful enthusiasm
for all that was noble and fine. All three were
prominent in the school life because of natural
qualities of leadership, and because of offices
to which their fellow-students had elected them
in the Literary Society, the Rugby Team, and
other organizations. When the girls of the

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Page 6 The Schoolboy in the War

school were "mobilised" into a Knitting "Bri-
gade," these boys volunteered to act as our
financiers. "Don't you worry about money,"
they said. "We'll get it out of the fellows. If
the girls are going to do the knitting, it's only
fair for the boys to find the money." It was
never neccessary to tell them that our ex-
chequer was empty, for every little while one or
another would come along with the anxious in-
quiry, "How are you off for cash?" I never
quite got over the novelty of the sensation
caused by such solicitude on the part of a pupil
over the state of my finances. Not to make too
heavy demands upon the boys' pocket-money,
we got up a play or two (we seemed to be over-
flowing with energy), and our relationship be-
came thus closer than ever. We all liked to
have George and Alan act together, for they
"played up" to each other perfectly, and were
such an interesting contrast — George, the typi-
cal Anglo-Saxon, with fair skin and warm
colouring; Alan, the typical Gael, with dark
hair and deep blue eyes. Both had real histri-
onic ability; but, while George acted upon all
instructions with readiness and quickness,
Alan, with a perversity that was probably a
blending of Scottish and Irish obstinacy, often
proved intractable to the very last, when he
would come out with all the requisites of his
role according to instructions given at re-
hearsals, and with improvements and additions

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The Schoolboy in the War Page 7

of his own inventive fancy. Once during the
year the boys put on a wonderful Minstrel
Show, in which Alan, with Tartan facings on
his coat-lapels and a rich burr in his accent,
played the part of one Sandy McTeich in in-
imitable fashion.

All too soon the year sped away, shadowed
toward the close by St. Julien and Festubert.
At the latter place Alan's eldest brother, Gor-
don, was killed. I had never known him per-
sonally, but, as Alan often used to slip into my
class-room after hours to show me his letters
and talk about the war (what an event a letter
from overseas was in those days!), I seemed
to know him very well indeed. All through the
winter Alan was straining at the leash, though
he was not seventeen till April ; and I was afraid
of the effect which his brother's death might
have on his intense Scoto-Irish nature. When,
as soon as the Matriculation Examination (on
which he was writing) was over, I heard that
he was going over to Niagara Camp, I hastened
out to his home on the little Credit River, care-
fully preparing on the way an array of argu-
ments to persuade him to wait another year.
But my arguments were so many blank cart-
ridges, and my reference to his youth only
roused his ire. He was old enough — almost a
man — he must go. Oh, the infinite pity and
pathos of it all! — the way these boys, little
more than children, assumed the responsibili-

Page 8 The Schoolboy in the War

ties of the war! "What a mistake," wrote a
friend to me on .hearing of Alan's death, "our
voluntary system was! It seemed so fine and
free, symbolic of our national liberty; but it
just drained our country of its very best — so
much youth, hope, ambition, apparently wasted !
The Americans have profited by our lesson. The
Draft System is the only one, and twenty is
quite young enough to take these lads for
service."

George and Raymond and Alan all joined
the Colours about the same time, in the summer
of 1915; and, after a winter in camp at Toronto,
went overseas in 1916; Alan in March, George
in May, Raymond in September. With them
went a large number of their comrades of the
campus and the class-room, many of them skip-
ping a year or two in their haste to reach mili-
tary age and their eagerness to die for their
country. Each year since has seen a similar
exodus, and the old school has become a rather
forlorn and desolate place. In fact, it has
seemed as if part, and that the better part, of
the school were overseas ; and, like the Jacobites
of old, who drank to the King over the Water,
we have pledged our hearts' dearest allegiance
to the lads who crossed the sea, the lads whose
deeds proved them to be of the real Blood Royal
and whose Right Divine was therefore not to be
gainsaid or questioned. If only I had space to
tell of their endeavours and achievements here!

The Schoolboy in the War Page 9

There was Fleetwood, in whom I was given "a
third legal interest" by his parents, and who was
sometime to take me for my first flight through
the blue Empyrean — when he had made quite
sure of his landings (but poor Fleetwood never
made quite sure of those landings). There was
Harry, who did take me for a flight one day,
very real even though imaginary, away up over
the lines on the western front, assuring me that
I need not be afraid, for he would "twist and
turn all over the place," and I should see
"Archie" shooting wild; but Harry took a last
flight all alone in his little fighting 'bus just
before Vimy, and whither he went no one knows
to this day. There was Walter, whom we all
thought quite safe because he was a Medical
Officer in Shorncliffe Hospital, until one day,
like a bolt from the blue, came the news that he
had died suddenly of overwork. There was
Charlie, whose face was never seen without a
smile, even in death, when they found his body
lying in No Man's Land beside that of the com-
rade whom he had tried to carry through the
deep Flanders mud. There was Arnold, the in-
trepid Naval Airman, who, having to descend
on the German side in Belgium, passed through
a month of such adventures and escapes as make
the wildest fiction seem tame, and who, after a
brief leave in Canada, returned to duty only,
alas ! to be claimed a victim by the insatiable
North Sea. There was Douglas ("Duggie" of

Page 10 The Schoolboy in the War

beloved memory), a hero if ever there was one,
who went to the war at seventeen and returned
a scarred but decorated veteran, only to have to
fight all his battles over again in the delirium
of pneumonia, and, worn out with the double
struggle, to lay down his arms at last. There
was Max— but no, I will not speak of him or of
others now. There is not room on my canvas
for so many figures ; I must keep to my one
sketch.

I have been going through two bundles of
letters received from Alan: the one covering
the year that elapsed till his Canadian furlough;
the other the year and more since his return to
the front. The early letters, written in Eng-
land, are brimful of enthusiasm — everything was
so fresh and interesting. One letter — a long one
— describes a review of the Fourth Canadian
Division by the King shortly before its de-
parture for France. After speaking of the pre-
liminaries, the boy goes on: "Then came a blast
on a bugle, and you could hear the mutter, 'The
King is coming!' Finally came another blast,
and the Division sloped arms. First a big car
rolled up with the Queen in it, and then we
could see the Royal Standard coming over the
hill. The King rode up to the saluting base
with his staff grouped round him. . . . The
command came: 'Fourth Canadians — Royal
Salute — Present Arms!' and the Division came
to the present, while the massed band played the

The Schoolboy in the War Page n

National Anthem. Then we sloped arms again,
and there was a minute's quiet, when Gen. Wat-
son stood up in his stirrups and called for three
cheers for the King. You should have heard a
Canadian Division cheer ! I never heard such a
noise in all my life. Every man put his cap
on the end of his rifle and cheered his lungs
nearly away. When everything was quiet
again, the King turned his horse and trotted
down beside the crowd, followed by his staff.
He circled around past the artillery at a walk,
and came slowly up the infantry line. As he
came up to us, I heard Gen. Watson say, 'This
is the 75th, Sir, another Toronto Unit.' Then
the King said, 'There is one thing we notice

about your Canadians ' and they passed on."

The letter ends with a reference to the pre-
parations for departure for France, "the place
I have been longing to reach for two years."
And now his dear young body rests in France
forever !

The first Battle of the Somme, begun on Do-
minion Day, 1916, had been in progress for
about a month when our boy crossed the Chan-
nel. From August to December he was in active
service. Like other correspondents, he was reti-
cent about his experiences and feelings; but oc-
casionally he broke silence and I remember, in
particular, a reference to Courcelette in one of
his letters, and an enthusiastic tribute to the
22nd French-Canadians, who covered themselves

Page 12 The Schoolboy in the War

with glory in this action. Just before Christmas
he was stricken with appendicitis and taken to
England. Writing from an Epsom war hospital
on Dec. 25, he says, with a touch of the humour
that was part of his Celtic heritage : "This is
the biggest hospital under one roof in this
country. It was, before the war, the London
County Insane Asylum; so, you see, I have at
last found my level — I am an inmate."

In March of 1917, almost an exact year from
his departure, he came back on a well-earned
furlough. Shall I ever forget that Saturday
morning when, answering a tap which I took
to be that of the janitor, I found him at the door
of my little flat? One fears almost as much as
one hopes to see these lads again; but a single
look was enough to show me that he was the
same clear-eyed and clean-souled boy who had
gone away — the war had not coarsened or cor-
rupted him in the least. In fact, he seemed
quite unaltered that day; but, within twenty-
four hours, I noticed a great change come over
him. For the very day after his arrival news
came of the death of his beloved Commander,
Col. Beckett (who had been like a father to
him) ; and, though he received the word with
stoical composure, he was greatly affected by
it. He scorned to speak of nerves, but to those
of us who knew him well he could not help be-
traying himself occasionally; and I have reason
to know that he spent many a night, in a terrible

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The Schoolboy in the War Page 13

dream life, roaming up and down No Man's
Land, vainly searching for the body of his lost
leader. He should not have gone back for a
long while, if at all ; but, when I spoke to him
about the matter, as I was asked to do in a letter
from his brother Wallace, who was then in
France, he said decidedly: "I could never look
George and Ray and the other fellows in the
face again if I didn't go back. I must go."

And so, one evening in June, I saw my Boy
Benjamin for the last time, when he ran in for
a few minutes to say Good-bye. He was cheery
and brave, as a matter of course, only saying, in
answer to some inane remark of mine: "Yes, I
know what I am going to, but I've got to go.
Don't you see that I have got to go?" And I
did see that to a lad of his mettle there was no
staying at home, no accepting of the "cushy
job" that I knew had been offered to him in
Canada. So I could only summon up my poor
pennyworth of Irish and say to him, "Dia
Leat !" explaining that it had more virtue than
its nearest English equivalent, "God bless you!"
or "God be with you!" "'Leat' is a Dative,
Alan," I remember saying, and I had a queer
subconsciousness of how absurdly pedagogical
were my last words to the boy — a little lesson on
Irish grammar. Oh, the smiles we put on just
to cover our tears! Oh, the poor little triviali-
ties with which we camouflage our love !

He had scarcely left our shores before news

Page 14 The Schoolboy in the War

came of the death of George, and, a fortnight
later, that of Raymond also. George had been
mortally wounded at Fresnoy, Raymond at La
Coulotte. Had the news come earlier, I think
that I should have moved heaven and earth to
keep Alan home. But, though I might have
moved heaven and earth, I know that I should
have failed to move the stubborn resolution of
a boy in his 'teens, made more adamantine as it
would have been by the loss of his two friends.
And somehow, though I often wondered what
he had meant when he had said, "I know what I
am going to," I was buoyed up by a faith that
the last of my beloved Trio would bear a
charmed life, and, winning through the war,
come tapping at my door again some happy
Saturday morning.

He was in England only a short while — Eng-
land was dull and uninteresting to him now —
and presently word came that he had rejoined
his old Unit, now under Col. Harbottle, in
France. That was in August, 1917; and, since
that time, with the exception of two brief fur-
loughs in "Blighty," he was at the great and
grim game in France and Flanders to the end.
For a long time he was Scout Officer for the
Battalion, and his work was, of course, very
dangerous. But, as I heard from other officers,
he seemed to know no fear. "That boy," said
a returned Captain of the ysth to me once, "used
to go up and down No Man's Land as if it had

The Schoolboy in the War Page 15

been his own back yard" — whereupon there was
dashed off a dissertation on the text, "Discre-
tion is the better part of valour." In due course
came an answer, pleading "Not Guilty" to the
implied charge. "You see," he wrote, "my work
is not easy, and my nights are spent in the front
line and in No Man's Land; but my business
takes me there. . . . You need not worry. I
know enough about this game to keep me from
taking fool risks, and I have seen enough sights
to last till the end of my life."

A few months after his return to France he
was promoted in rank, and became a Captain at
nineteen. A little later, in the spring of 1918,
came a Decoration, the Military Cross, "for con-
tinuous good service at the front and con-
spicuous bravery on the field of battle." When
I gave this news-item to the press and inno-
cently sent him the clippings, this erstwhile
pupil of mine sent me back a gentle reprimand,
saying that he disliked publicity, and that there
had been too many references to his family in
the papers to suit his taste. I was reminded of
Donald Hankey's Average Englishman, who
glories in never having had his name in the
newspapers. But I think that, if he could speak
to-day, my boy would not refuse me the privi-
lege of penning this little tribute to his memory.

In a letter dated August 16, he described the
drive which began on the 8th, praising the gal-
lantry of Col. Harbottle (who evidently proved

Page 16 The Schoolboy in the War

a worthy successor to Col. Beckett), but griev-
ing over the loss of brother officers, especially
Major Bull, D.S.O., and Captain Commins, M.C.
But, proudly describing the advance, he says:
"You can hardly imagine our feelings as we
marched through mile after mile of conquered
country, past long rows of German guns,
through wooded dells which but a few hours
before had belonged to the enemy, finally going
through our own glorious phase of the attack
and handing over the advance to another of our
Divisions, as well as to Divisions of Cavalry,
and hundreds of Tanks, which poured through
for miles."

Early in September he was in England on
leave, and could scarcely have more than got
back to the line when, in that wild storm of
wind and rain with which Nature fittingly ac-
companied the Third Battle of Cambrai, a battle
greater, more epoch-marking, more heroic than
that in which gods and men contended

"Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy,"

he fell, with so many of his peers, Schoolboys
of Yesterday, fighting grimly, and yet, I like to
think joyously, to the very last.

I thank God that, though He denied the
dearer boon for which I prayed, He yet granted,
in lieu of life, so glorious a death. Not for a
young, heroic soul the tame and quiet passing

The Schoolboy in the War Page 17

desired by an old Poet who, with all his
strength and fineness, was scarcely a Combatant,
and never, surely, a real Boy. Rather the death
desired by another Poet who was "ever a
fighter," and, even in old age, something of a
real Boy still. I seem to hear a voice from
Marathon and from the market-place of
Athens. It is the voice of young Pheidippides,
the runner, the soldier, shouting his exultant
Xaipere VIKW/ACV in the very moment of a death
the most beautiful surely, with the One Great
Exception, that past history records. And now
the voice changes to one dearer and more
familiar, one that I have heard on many a
hard-fought Rugby field. It is a little raucous,
yet it makes music to my ear. It comes from
Bourlon Wood and from Cambrai. It uses a
language less melodious but not less virile than
the ancient Greek, the language of Britain and
of Canada and of that America of which Canada
is a part. It is the voice of the Schoolboy in
the War, shouting as exultantly as did the
young Pheidippides, but with an added note —
"Rejoice, we are victorious ! Oh, Death, where
is thy sting?"

Almost at the moment of Alan's death came
his latest photograph; and, sharing as I do that
sweet Celtic fancy that wherever one's picture
goes, something of oneself must needs go with
it, I feel as if the spirit of our boy, when his
body was struck down, winged its flight back

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Page 18 The Schoolboy in the War

to the Canada that he loved so well. Placed be-
side a photograph taken just before he went
away, it makes an interesting study. Less than
three years separate the two pictures, but they
seem at least a decade apart. The one shows a
boyish face, eager, wide-eyed, wondering; the
other the face of a man, stronger, sadder, gentler.
The boy is ready to set out on the Great Ad-
venture; the man has come through that adven-
ture, and is about to fare forth on the Greater
Adventure that lies ahead.

Since that fateful April 22, 1915, and most
of all since that more fateful August 8, 1918, a
cloud, growing ever larger and blacker, has
overspread our once serene Canadian skies. To
none of us can life ever be the same as it once
was; and many there be who now turn longing
eyes towards that Land of Heart's Desire that
lies, we hope, beyond the setting sun. We take
comfort in the thought that there are for us only

"A few more years at most, and then
Life's troubles end like summer's rain;
The pattering on the leaves will cease,
And we shall meet our boy again."

If only some more daring and successful
Columbus could voyage forth on a wide Sea of
Discovery, and, returning, link this little planet
up forever with the great Spirit World! Per-
haps the lads who "go west," these young Cap-
tains Adventurous of ours, do return to visit

The Schoolboy in the War Page 19

us sometimes; but we, earth-bound creatures
that we are, do not hear their quiet coming, do
not rise to let them in. That is a delicate fancy
of Barrie's (the middle name of the boy of whom
I have been writing was given him in honour
of that gentlest and truest and perhaps pro-
foundest of present-day writers) in the little
play, "A Well-Remembered Voice," in which
the spirit of the soldier-laddie appears not to
the table-rappers, but to an unbeliever in such
crude devices, the boy's father. He comes not
in the uncanny fashion familiar to us in the old-
time ghost stories, but in a dear and natural
manner, and chats in the old boyish way. And,
though he may not stay long, he promises to
come again when he can get the password —
"Love bade me welcome" — and meantime his
father must be brave and cheery.

Yes, though the laughter has died out of our
lives, we should dishonour our beloved dead if
we did not try to emulate their marvellous
courage and good cheer. We must "carry on"
as best we may, and each do our little part in
the reconstruction of a world that has been
turned topsy-turvy; and we must somehow see
to it that neither Caesar nor Demos shall hence-
forth have power wantonly to destroy the fair
handiwork of God or man. We shall have to
recast our theology, perhaps after the manner
suggested by the clear-visioned Student in
Arms. But we cannot lose faith in the human

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Page 20 The Schoolboy in the War

or the divine; for, if the war has shown the
deviltry to which man may descend, the School-
boy in the War has shown the divinity to which
he may attain. Perhaps the world is on the back-
ward swing from the extreme of materialism of
which German science has been the exponent.
Perhaps we are on the eve of strange and new
discoveries in the world of thought — who
knows? At any rate we must go on, patiently
working at the problems of this mysterious life
of ours, and hoping against hope that by and
by the light will break in upon us, and that we
shall at last understand, and in our understand-
ing rejoice and be exceeding glad.

NOTE

The chief figure in the foregoing sketch is that of
Captain Alan Barrie Duncan, M.C., who was killed in
the Battle of Cambrai, Sept. 30, 1918. Though only
twenty years of age, he was Second in Command of
his Battalion at the time. He was the last original
officer of this famous "Suicide Battalion." The other
persons mentioned are: Capt. George O. Hall; Lieut.
A. Raymond Minard; Lieut. Fleetwood E. Daniel;
Lieut. Harry Saxon Pell; Capt. Walter McKenzie;
Lieut. Charles H. Sparrow; Flight-Commander Arnold
J. Chadwick, D.S.C.; Lieut. A. Douglas Gray, M.C.;
Lieut. H. E. Maxwell Porter. These are only a few
of the many young heroes whose memory I should like
to honour; perhaps that privilege may one day be mine,
but for the present it is denied me.

N. S.

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

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639

ES2C36

1919

C.I

ROBA